


My Kingdom For A Kiss

by Akumeoi



Series: All Covered In Gold [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, First Kiss, M/M, Merpeople
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-17 01:53:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14822979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akumeoi/pseuds/Akumeoi
Summary: Mermaid Noctis arrives on land, armed with new legs, a magic amulet, and a shirt made out of seaweed. He has one big problem: he can't speak any human language. To be able to do that... he'll need a kiss.





	My Kingdom For A Kiss

Every mermaid was taught, from a young age: if you see a human lost in deep water, kiss them on the lips. The kiss of life was strong magic, giving those sad, gill-less creatures the ability to not only breathe underwater rather than drown, but also to speak the language of mermaids so that the situation could be explained before anyone got offended or thought they were about to be eaten.

If only human children learnt about that too, Noctis reflected. He’d been waiting here by the edge of the water for an hour or two, and he still hadn’t come up with a plan to convey to a human that yeah, he needed to kiss them, please. Two people had come by: an old man with a fishing rod and a young female jogger, but both of them had been scared off after just a few minutes. Aside from the fact that he couldn’t speak their language, Noctis was wearing a knee-length garment of woven seaweed, which was nothing like what the two humans had been wearing. They had probably thought he looked really weird. Noctis hadn’t particularly wanted to kiss either of those people, but if he didn’t meet anyone else, his mission to bring human knowledge back to his dad’s underwater kingdom would be over before it had begun. 

Sitting morosely on a piece of driftwood, Noctis toyed with the bespelled amulet that hung from his neck, which was responsible for giving him a body that could survive on land. It also reversed the magic of the kiss of life so that a human could give language comprehension to a mermaid, rather than the other way around. He was sort of eyeing his new legs suspiciously when he heard a strange baying sound, and looked over his shoulder to find a young human man with a loud creature he thought was called a _dog_ approaching.

Having tried to communicate with two humans already, Noctis had a vague idea about how this would go. Nevertheless, he turned towards the approaching human, trying to look harmless and friendly. He could tell the man had noticed him, but wasn’t sure if he intended to stop and try and talk to him. 

When the man drew near, Noctis stumbled as he stood up, catching himself on a branch sticking up from the driftwood. These legs were not as easy to use as they looked. Immediately, the man said something Noctis didn’t understand. He hoped it was something along the lines of “Are you okay?” and not “Haha, you moron.”

“I can’t,” Noctis mouthed in his own language, pointing at his ears and mouth and frowning. His smart friend, Ignis, had warned him that common gestures for things like “yes” and “no” might not be the same on land as underwater. Noctis was trying to use facial expressions instead, since they were biologically universal. The stranger was also frowning, leaning down to clip a leash around the neck of his dog and giving it a command to make it sit. He pointed to Noctis, then to his own ears, and made an X in the air with his arms.

Noctis smiled eagerly, hoping that meant “You can’t hear?” or something like that. This was farther than he had gotten with any human so far. 

The man was frowning again. He was kinda cute - freckled, with messy blonde hair and the most distinctive eyebrows Noctis had seen on any human or mermaid. If he ended up kissing this guy, it wouldn’t be so bad. But probably he’d soon be scared off like the others had, and Noctis would be sitting here alone and bored again.

He had already determined from “talking” to the old man that trying to explain he was a mermaid was just too complicated. So it was time to go straight for the kill. He pointed at his lips, then made a “come here” gesture with both arms, hoping that the human would understand what he meant.

At first, he kept looking confused, tilting his head to one side. He pointed to his own lips, and Noctis smiled. That only seemed to make things worse. He looked up and down the beach as if he expected a stranger to come along and explain to him what Noctis meant. Internally, Noctis groaned, sensing this “conversation” was already going downhill. 

But the human did not give up. Squaring his shoulders, he took a deep breath, then pointed at his lips, then back at Noctis, who smiled at him encouragingly. He still didn’t seem to get it, though, so Noctis gestured at his lips, then at the man, then back to himself, and then finally made a ‘joining’ motion by touching both of his fists together. 

At that, the man took a step back, tightening his hands on the dog’s leash. Great. Now he was thinking Noctis was dangerous or creepy. At least his fluffy white dog didn’t look inclined to attack, sitting there panting and flopping its tail happily against the sand.

Noctis didn’t really know what to do. He needed this kiss, and he thought maybe the human had figured that out. But he couldn’t push him - that would be wrong. He cast his mind around for a way to make himself seem less threatening, to prove he had no ill intentions. All he could think of was to take a step back and spread out his arms to show he had no weapons. He could only hope that this wasn’t some kind of bad gesture in the culture of this human. 

The man was biting his lip and sort of hovering, playing with the dog’s leash in his hands. Noctis’s heart leapt - maybe he was considering it?

Stepping towards Noctis, the human made a sweeping motion with his open palms, from the top of his head down to about his waist. Noctis cocked his head in confusion, until the human put one knee down on the sand and Noctis realised he wanted him to get down on his knees. Well, if it meant he’d get his kiss so he could stop making hand gestures and accosting strangers and feeling like a total idiot, Noctis was all for it. Careful not to lose his balance on unsteady legs, he knelt. 

The human set the leash down in the sand and held up his hand to the dog, which panted lazily back at him. Then, he approached Noctis, watching him warily as if he expected him to change his mind and get up. 

Noctis cast his eyes down and held himself very still. The human’s shadow fall over him, and then his warm hand was resting on Noctis’s shoulder with fingers digging into the crook of his neck, perhaps as a warning. The other hand cupped his chin, and a soft mouth pressed against his. Noctis parted his lips, felt the stranger hesitate. But as Noctis didn’t move from where he was kneeling, a warm tongue caressed his lips, then slipped inside his mouth. The kiss deepened as their tongues brushed.

At first, Noctis was afraid that the magic wasn’t working. Maybe the amulet was broken, or had been configured wrong. But then, his lips begin to tingle. A feeling of warmth grew in his chest, and he heard a whispering in his ears, as if words were forming from thin air and slipping into his mind too quickly for him to hear what was being said. The human gave a little gasp of surprise and let go of Noctis in a rush. When Noctis opened his eyes, he saw that the amulet around his neck was glowing gold. 

The tingling of his lips faded, but Noctis felt different somehow. He looked up at the human, who had picked up the dog’s leash and was hovering beside it with a scowl on his face. 

“So what was that, was that for a bet, was that like, for a joke?” he was saying. “Like, ‘haha, let’s prank Prompto, it’s gonna be great!’ Maybe I look really dumb to you right now, but at least I got to kiss you, so ha, joke’s on you, random strange hot guy.” Noctis’s mouth nearly dropped open in shock. He could _understand_. 

He didn’t want his rescuer to get scared and run off, at least not before he had a chance to say thank you. Noctis waited as Prompto listed off a couple of other improbable possibilities, basking in the fact that he could understand every single one, no arm gestures needed.

“No, it wasn’t a bet or a joke,” Noctis said, smiling as his mouth formed naturally around the words, just like he was speaking his native tongue. “Sorry to startle you. I’m a mermaid. Do you know somewhere I can get a different shirt?”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Promptis week 2018 day 1: "First kiss/last kiss."
> 
> Fun fact: Noctis's pod keeps domesticated dolphins :D
> 
> Comments always welcome!


End file.
